


All He Ever Wanted

by Lancre_witch



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: 21 Sacraments Ending (Silent Hill), Gen, Unhappy Ending, lots of background deaths and nastiness but nothing in much detail, one murder from older Walter on-page but again it's brief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28362615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancre_witch/pseuds/Lancre_witch
Summary: “Self-parenting helps the wounded child inside of you heal and grow. It is created through nurturing ourselves and regulating our behaviour and feelings. It means that we have a part of ourselves that overrides the impulse to run wild or to be self-punishing.”As with many things in his life, Walter Sullivan took self-parenting further than most, even after it was far too late. All he had ever wanted was his mother, and a better life for himself.
Kudos: 4





	All He Ever Wanted

Walter Sullivan realised something had gone wrong the moment he stepped into the apartment after the final sacrament. Not because anything had changed, but because nothing had. He let his younger self run on ahead while he locked the door behind them.

“Mom!” The sofa springs creaked as the boy jumped on it.

Sullivan echoed the word, placing a hand to the white painted wall beside him. “Mom? It’s time to wake up.”

The room remained nothing more than mindless brick and mortar, and the doubt that had been gnawing at his stomach became a hard knot. Maybe it would take a while, he told himself, and tried to believe it.

His eyes were pulled to the hole in the wall, where his own corpse had so recently been hidden.

“Walter?” he asked. “Can I leave you alone with Mom while I check on something?”

The boy nodded. “Can I have the TV on?”

“Sure.” Walter Sullivan turned it to something that looked child friendly from what he could see through the static. “I’ll try to sort that later.”

“Thanks.”

He didn’t even look up from the screen. Sullivan was glad of that. He’d had only had two goals in death. One was to wake his mother, and the other was to make sure that the memory-born boy never grew into him.

Walter knew he wasn’t parental figure material, but he also knew he was a damn sight better than anyone at Wish House. And he probably had less blood on his hands than half of the priests, not that little Walter would ever know about that. He’d be safe here, safe from everything the older Walter hadn’t been.

He ducked through the hole in the wall and dropped down into the Otherworld, making a mental note to seal this place off again when he got back. Or maybe repair the floor and have it as a small playroom. That would save the living room carpet from messy art projects. Would the boy feel claustrophobic in there? Sullivan couldn’t remember the first time he was sent to the water prison, but if young Walter had already been there, it would take a long time for him to recover, if he ever did.

_An open are_ _a_ _without a door, then?_ he wondered as he checked Henry Townsend’s body. Lifeless and bloody from the necessary incisions, the Receiver of Wisdom lay staring sightlessly up at him.

He’d ask Walter about what colour to paint the walls, he decided. What was left of Eileen Galvin was exactly as it should be, an anchor between worlds, and a beacon to the Holy Mother. Sullivan breathed a sigh of relief. Of course it wouldn’t be immediate. All they had to do was wait.

*

Young Walter was in bed. If he’d noticed anything amiss in the last few days, then he’d made no indication of it, not that Sullivan had ever been the best at reading people.

He flicked through the television channels, trying to find one that was still comprehensible through the static. In the end he gave up and flicked the radio on. It had been affected less badly by what he was coming to suspect was a dreadful mistake on his part.

“...another five found dead since Saturday. People in the Ashfield area are being advised to avoid non-essential travel… _And God said, Offer the Blood of the Ten Sinners and the White Oil…_ meteorologists have… _Return to the Source through sin's Temptation..._ appeal for calm...” The radio cut off.

There was a cry from the bedroom, and if Walter Sullivan still had a heart, it would have stopped. Without thinking, he ran down the hall and met young Walter halfway down it. He picked up the boy without thinking and hugged him close until the sobs which racked his small body quietened.

“There- there’s a mu- monster,” he managed to choke out against Walter’s jumper. Or Henry’s jumper really, but he wasn’t going to be using it any more.

“It’s alright, it was just a nightmare,” Walter Sullivan said, as if he couldn’t hear the muffled noises from the bedroom.

He carried young Walter to the sofa and sat him down. “Hot chocolate?”

Walter nodded and sat watching as he opened drawers and mixed the powder in the little kitchenette, as if the man would be snatched up by some terrible beast if he looked away.

Chubby hands reached up for the mug as soon as he stepped out from behind the counter. Walter Sullivan smiled.

“You’re safe here with me and Mom. But just to make sure, do you want me to check for monsters?”

“’s please.”

Once out of sight, Walter eased the carving knife out of his sleeve and flicked the bedroom light on. He turned and came face to face with the ghost of Jimmy Stone, struggling to pull himself through the wall and into this reality.

Oh, this was a monster alright, face to face with another, but little Walter would never know it. Without hesitation, Walter Sullivan plunged the knife into the Red Devil over and over until he faded back into a tailor-made hell.

Walter lit a holy candle to dispel any lingering blood, then snuffed it out and went back to the living room.

“All safe,” he said.

He took the now empty mug from the coffee table and dropped it in the sink along with the knife. They could be washed later.

“And now it’s time for bed, young man.”

The boy hid behind Walter’s legs when he opened the door, then peered cautiously around him when nothing leapt from the shadows.

As soon as the light was switched on, he bolted for the bed and threw himself onto it.

Walter tucked the covers around him and kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, Walter. Sleep well.”

“Night.”

He got to the door before he heard the quiet voice behind him.

“Um. Can you leave the door open tonight?”

For a moment, the orphanage flashed through his mind. “Of course. Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay. G’night.”

“Goodnight.”

*

Walter hurried back home as fast as the heavy bag would allow him. It had been over two weeks since the mist had come down, and that wasn’t the worst of it. He couldn’t be sure if any figure in the fog was human or a being of the Holy Mother’s realm, or which was worse. The humans who had stayed seemed half feral, and the others had no gratitude for the one who called them, however unwittingly.

Walter sighed and pushed open the door to the apartment block. All the surviving residents had fled days ago, and he climbed the rusty metal stairs in silence.

More blood on his coat. He dropped his bag on the hall floor and shrugged out of it. He’d wash it when young Walter went to sleep. Turning it inside out, he folded the coat over his arm and unlocked the door.

“Walter… Mom… I’m home.”

He dropped the bag on the counter top and a couple of holy candles rolled out.

“Why do you keep getting those things?” Walter whined. “Ms Gilespe used to get much prettier candles. These don’t even smell good.”

“I like them,” Walter said shortly.

“But you’ve got a whole box full of them.”

“And I’ve got you a box full of candies, so don’t complain.” The man sighed. “Sorry. It was hell out there today.”

“It’s okay. You’re home with me and Mom now.”

“Yeah,” he said and forced a smile. “Just our little family.”

*

Walter Sullivan started from his doze in front of the television. Walter was shaking him, and it didn’t take long to realise why.

What was still visible of the grainy cartoon horses were now chanting something in a language he didn’t understand, but that and young Walter were mostly being drowned out by the shrieking of an air raid siren. The sky was dark, although it was barely two in the afternoon. For the first time in his adult life, Walter was truly panicked.

“It’s just a storm,” he reassured him, a moment before power died across the town.

Young Walter screamed, and he couldn’t blame him.

“It’s alright. Just a power cut, just a power cut. I’m going to light a candle, okay? You’re safe here.”

He stumbled across the room and rummaged in the drawer for the gas lighter Henry had kept next to the hob, presumably instead of fixing the pilot light on the back right ring. It lit up on his second try, and he carefully transferred the flame to the candle wick.

What it illuminated didn’t fill him with any hope. Walter placed the candle on a saucer and tried to think. The important thing was to keep himself calm.

“Hey Walter, you ever made a den before? That’s what we used to do at college when the power went out.”

The boy shook his head but grinned. “I’ll get the blankets.”

As he ran off, Walter Sullivan shut the blinds against the dark fog which billowed into shifting, leering faces in the candlelight. So this was how ended. He had a dozen holy candles left, and then the darkness would find them.

The thought was pushed to the back of his mind by a flurry of blankets and cushions and clothes pegs until half the living room was a cosy, cushion lined den.

One thing there didn’t seem to be in the apartment were any battery lamps or flashlights. After some thought, Walter peeled the label off an empty coffee jar and stood a candle inside it. It wasn’t a very strong light, but it was enough for young Walter to be happy colouring, and that was enough for his older self.

He counted the candles again in the small circle of light, and realised that God had granted his wish. The boy would never grow up to become him.


End file.
